9 out of 9 people found the following review helpful:

Hitchcock gets tough in his old age

Daniel Pollard from Manchester, England, 18th March, 2009

Penultimate Alfred Hitchcock thriller filmed before his death in 1980. It features his key theme of the wrong man suffering from mistaken identity, most notable in his masterpiece North By Northwest. Made after the dull and plotty Topaz, Hitchcock was out to shock. He certainly does shock and gets an 18 certificate from the BBFC for his troubles. The adult only certificate was applied to the film most notably for the rape and murder scene, with its short jumpy French New Wave inspired cuts and rhythmic shouting and groaning from the killer. In 1972 this would have really shocked, but by 21st century standards it seems a little tame and stagey. To ease the viewer into the never before seen full frontal nudity and murder in a Hitchcock film, he juxtaposes these horrific criminal acts with his usual blend of dark macabre comedy. Added to this are the London locations of Tower Bridge, The Strand and Covent Garden with interiors shot in the legendary Pine Wood studios. Maybe Hitchcock was on his last legs and thought this was his last film? This would explain why he returned to his roots in native London and his use of stage actors, rather than glamorous Hollywood stars.

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9 out of 9 people found the following review helpful:

still first class

Mark MacMillan from Scotland, 1st January, 2006

Hitch may have been getting on a bit, but that has not stopped him from putting out a movie which can stand alongside his best works. Absolutely superb performances from all involved and Hitchcocks London looks as good on film as it ever did.

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6 out of 6 people found the following review helpful:

The old master - past his prime but worth watching

Matthew Whittingham from London, 9th January, 2005

Filmed in the early 70's, this late Hitch seems to have dated more than his earlier work. However, the familiar Hitch touches are all here..the wrongly accused man, a series of gruesome murders, and two or three set pieces. It's well acted and decidely grotesque in places. I expected not to enjoy this - it's decidely out of vogue with most critics. But if you're a Hitch fan and up for an old fashioned thriller this is well worth a view.

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6 out of 6 people found the following review helpful:

Hitchcock - back to his roots

nashville from Kent, 25th May, 2004

For his penultimate film Hitchcock returned to his London roots to make this violent sleazy tale of a sexual psychopath on the loose in Covent Garden.

It has the usual Hitchcock theme of an innocent man trying to clear his name in the face of overwhelming circumstantial evidence. There are no big Hollywood stars here, instead we get a solid cast of British actors and a top class script from Anthony Shaffer.

This is one of the most violent pictures Hitch ever directed although strong doses of black humour help to lighten the tone a little. There are some wonderful set pieces - the killer wrestling with a corpse in the back of a potato truck, a fantastic backwards tracking shot from the killer's door down a staircase and into the market streets, a policemen battling with his wife's gourmet cooking.

A disturbing but at times very funny picture, I am sure that directors such as Dario Argento and Brian DePalma would have been influenced by this.

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A must-see if you like films set in London

A Customer from Bristol, 14th February, 2010

A great period piece. The long shot along the Thames at the beginning is wonderful, as is Hitchcock's use of Covent Garden as the central location in the film. There are some memorable scenes, both dark and humorous, such a when the murderer is in the back of a lorry. It's also good to see some familiar old british actors, such as Massey, Foster and Whitelaw, who all deliver strong performances.

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Frenzy

A Customer from Stranraer, 12th February, 2010

An excellent Hitchcock thriller with Barry Foster (one of my all-time favourites) cast to perfection. Perhaps not for the overly-squeamish or prudish. Jean Marsh (of Upstairs Downstairs) also makes a limited but very effective appearance as a coy secretary very protective of her (female) employer and as a confirmed man-hater. Recommended for fans of Hitchcock.

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1 out of 2 people found the following review helpful:

Lazy, meandering, and offensive

Andrews from from London, 22nd June, 2009

The more I delve into Hitchcock's extensive back catalog (box set for Christmas) the more I realise that he made some truly terrible films. 'Frenzy' isn't quite as bad as 'Torn Curtain' - but almost. New and completely irrelevant characters are bewilderingly introduced far too late - while the principle characters are sometimes dropped for too long a stretch, leaving you wondering what the true focus of the film really is. Genuinely disturbing scenes of violence are mixed with 'humour'; a tricky but not necessarily bad idea which Hitchcock simply fails to pull off, resulting in some shocking lapses in taste and judgment. The script (by Antony Schaffer) sounds wooden, stagey, and often completely implausible. And then there's the women in this film. When they're not being raped and murdered, they're silly, stupid, ridiculous old nags. If you're going to make something this misogynist you better work harder at making it a bloody good movie - otherwise, as is the case here, it's just embarrassing (like listening to a bigoted old uncle telling bad jokes at a wedding). I kept squinting at this film trying to work out if there was actually some kind of statement being made about men's attitudes to women. But if there is a feminist angle it's too clumsy and confused to come to the fore. The 'skit' involving a female corpse in a sack of potatos is particularly dire in this respect. The only thing I found to admire here was the cast, which is like a who's-who of British theatre talent of the early 70s. Barbara Leigh-Hunt, Bernard Cribbins, and Billie Whitelaw are particularly good - Whitelaw managing to stand out despite being given some of the film's most risible dialogue. Even in Hitchcock's bad films, there is usually one or two stand-out scenes, included almost as if to remind us there is a master film-maker at work. But one or two scenes in a two hour movie is not enough. This film is lazy, meandering, and offensive. The subject matter and the presence of Anna Massey kept making me compare it to Michael Powell's 'Peeping Tom'. It was Powell's film that first made me question Hitchcock's reputation, released as it was in the same year as 'Psycho', and being, in my opinion, the superior film. But then when I've just about made up my mind that Hitchcock is, after all, overrated, I go and watch 'Vertigo' and.....

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